1 » No. 1 Florida Gators women’s tennis’ run in the individual portion of the 2012 NCAA Tournament came to an end on Sunday with junior No. 1 Allie Will falling to No. 3 Nicole Gibbs of Stanford (6-2, 4-6, 6-3). Will, who was ranked No. 1 in both singles and doubles for a large portion of the season and was brilliant in the first four rounds of the individual tournament, finished the 2012 season 26-3 in singles action with her two of her three losses coming in the last two weeks. Florida women’s tennis has not had a individual singles national champion since 1996 (Jill Craybas).

2 » No. 2 Gators baseball (42-18) was announced Sunday as one of 16 host teams for the regional portion of the 2012 NCAA Tournament. McKethan Stadium in Gainesville, FL will host the double-elimination regionals for the fourth consecutive season and is also likely to be a Super Regional site should Florida advance past the other three teams (assignments to be determined Monday afternoon) competing in the Gainesville Regional beginning on Friday. Florida State and Miami are also hosting regionals in the state; LSU and South Carolina are the other Southeastern Conference teams hosting regionals.

3 » Though the Gators gained a transfer commitment from 2010 four-star prospect power forward Damontre Harris formerly of South Carolina, a source close to the program told OGGOA on Saturday that Florida will not stop pursuing a similar decision from Virginia Tech forward Dorian Finney-Smith. Himself a former four-star prospect, Finney-Smith is expected to decide “before he goes to the Kevin Durant camp June 22-23,” his mother told Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv. Finney-Smith is choosing between UF, Iowa State, Louisville, Marquette and Texas but has yet to schedule all of his visits. UF is currently at its scholarship limit if all recruits accept athletic scholarships but would do their best to find room for the ACC All-Freshman Team member who averaged 6.3 points, 7.0 rebounds and 1.9 assists while starting 30 of 33 games last season.

[EXPAND Click to expand and read one more BIT in this post.]4 » Former Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton, now the SEC’s “scheduling guru” as a consultant with the league, provided some details this week on the future of scheduling for both football and basketball now that Texas A&M and Missouri have joined the league. Though the 2012-13 schedules have already been set as stop gaps, coaches and athletic directors will vote and try to come to a decision on permanent schedules and postseason structures beginning in 2013-14. Below is what Templeton said to The Birmingham News on Saturday in regards to his expectations on how the meetings will unfold next week:

Football
– The conference schedule would remain at eight games and not expand to nine.
– The eight games would be scheduled in a 6-1-1 model with each team playing their six divisional opponents, one permanent rival from the other division and another on a rotation (not necessarily home-and-home).
– The News notes that “Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia should be safe as rivals. Kentucky-Mississippi State, South Carolina-Arkansas and LSU-Florida are permanent games that could be switched.” (Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin said in March that South Carolina would be his school’s permanent rival, meaning at least Arkansas will need a new annual opponent. The SEC could match Arkansas with Missouri and retain the other permanent games, though LSU has recently indicated that they may be interested in cancelling their series with Florida.)

Ill be upset if LSU bails on the permanent rival status. Can’t imagine having to play, say, a Mississippi team every year and being as excited for that game as LSU. Truthfully, can’t say that there’s another team in the west I’d rather play every year (maybe Bama, but Tennessee has that pleasure). Plus, would definitely hurt Gators strenght of schedule.

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